What is Facial Recognition?

Facial recognition is a kind of biometric identification that uses faces and heads to verify the identity of a person. This method is utilized to verify individuals in photos, videos, or in real-time.

How does facial recognition work?

The facial recognition system in the Philippines works in various ways, and these include:

• Detection: Facial recognition works by being able to locate and identify a face from a certain image that contains one or more faces using computer vision. Based on identifying an accurate coordinate of a face in a picture, facial recognition can detect faces, whether on the front or side profiles.
• Computer Vision: This is the main key component of facial recognition in identifying people and things in pictures. This aids facial recognition to check with accuracy and perform above human capacity at a faster speed and efficiency. Computer vision can extract, analyze, classify, and understand data from an image as it is powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
• Analysis: Facial recognition works by analyzing facial geometry, facial textures, and facial expression. It can also identify facial landmarks that are used to differentiate a face from an object. Specifically, facial recognition checks the distance between the eyes, the shape of the cheekbones, the depth of the eye sockets, the lip, chin, and ear contours, the distance from the forehead to the chin, and others.
• Recognition: Facial recognition can compare an individual’s face to two or more images, and by evaluating the likelihood of a face match, facial recognition can verify a person’s identity. One example of this is that facial recognition can match a selfie taken by a phone camera with an image from an ID, or a selfie can be matched with faces that have previously been captured.

Benefits and Uses of Facial Recognition

There are a host of benefits when one uses a facial recognition system, which include:

• Fraud detection: Companies today require their users to provide a facial ID when creating an account on their online platform. By doing so, facial recognition can be used to check a user’s identity when any questionable or suspicious activities are performed. Furthermore, hackers have a hard time stealing or falsifying faces when they opt to attack or hack an account that requires a face ID as one form of verification.
• Cybersecurity:  With the multitude of cybercrimes that are happening today, companies are now opting for facial recognition instead of traditional passwords. This is to have stronger cybersecurity systems, as passwords are easily hacked and stolen compared to face ID. Also, opting for facial recognition as a security measure is more convenient and faster.
• Building security: Facial recognition is also used to have stronger security measures in buildings. This is done by plugging facial recognition systems into CCTV video management data feeds to attach biometric identification technology. By doing so, faces can be captured on CCTVs, processed and recognized in real-time, and kept in recorded footage.

• Banking and Finance: The banking and finance industries are now opting for facial recognition systems to combat various problems, like fraud. This is seen when they implement it as a second or third form of authentication in some of their processes. This has immensely lessened identity fraud and helped address problems caused by scammers. Additionally, facial recognition is used to open a new account, request a money order, and perform other bank transactions. This results in an efficient and faster banking process. In the Philippines, this is immensely beneficial as financial fraud, especially during the pandemic, has increased, as evident in the 42,456 complaints to the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
• Healthcare: Used in various industries like healthcare, facial recognition can be used to screen, diagnose, or classify possible health risks. Also, facial recognition is used in various healthcare processes, such as accessing patients’ medical records and registration, making the process faster and more efficient.
• Efficiency and Convenience: Facial recognition as a security measure is considered faster compared to other methods like fingerprint and eye scanning. Furthermore, employees would not need any ID or cards for gaining access, entering a premise, or memorizing or noting down.

 Is facial recognition accurate? Is it safe?

Under excellent conditions like consistent positioning and lightning, as well as clear and unobstructed facial features, facial recognition can achieve an accuracy rate of 99.97%. This biometric security measure is also considered one of the safest identification processes because it utilizes unique mathematical patterns.

Suprema’s Biometric Systems with Facial Recognition

In the Philippines, Hitec International's partnership  with Suprema Station enables it to provide international biometrics and security solutions. Some of its products are:

• Biostation 3: This biometric security solution enables facial recognition by having a neural processing unit that provides improved accuracy when it comes to biometric facial authentication.

• Facestation F2: This product of Suprema keeps up with a post-pandemic society as it can identify individuals’ faces without masks and facilitate facial recognition for those who are wearing masks. It also houses IR recognition technology that can verify faces under dim light conditions, enabling  smooth facial recognition in all indoor lighting conditions.

Hitec International and its partnership with Suprema, the leading global biometric system provider, continue to provide Filipinos with advanced, multi-featured, and cost-friendly security solutions.

Our products, which are equipped with facial recognition systems, can be used in big corporations, medium-scale businesses, and even houses.

To learn more about Hitec International products, you maycall us at (632) 8724-0191 or e-mail us at info@hitec.com.ph.